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Game plan
The deck tries to play aggressive while disrupting the opponent.
With Noble Hierarch, Goyf, Pridemage and KotR you can curve out aggressively and deal a lot of damage in short time.

It also plays a good amount of disruption: Pridemage is a Disenchant effect and Gaddock is really awesome in a Meta full of Explosives, Forces and Natural Orders etc. and helps at least a bit against Tendrils and Dream Halls.
Wastelands in combination with KotR can slow the opponent down a lot. The Iona-Combo often wins the game for you nearly by itself and Mother of Runes helps both plans by protecting all those creatures.
Furthermore you also have some games that are just won by Survivals card advantage.
The deck has a very nice curve and I am rarely dissppointed with its starting hands.

Synergies
- the obvious synergies are Enlightened Tutor plus Enchantments/Artifacts, the usual Survival stuff and KotR + Wastelands. These may be obvious but they make the deck very consistent so I mention them nevertheless.
- Loyal Retainers / Iona Combo. This Combo is especially strong in this deck because of Mother of Runes. Usually you have to put Iona on the color of their Removal so that Iona not dies. But with Mother of Runes in play you can name the most important color and not the splash removal color. For example against Zoo you can name Red so they can't burn you out and protect Iona from PtE with Mother. Against Tempo Thresh you can do the same thing with naming Red and not blue for their Bounce spells (which they usually find if they want). In both cases Iona will also protect you from their creature army so that you very likely won't lose the game.
- Mother of Runes / Gaddock Teeg: Against many decks having these two in play is worth more than anything else. It locks out many control decks that operate with Explosives, Moat or Wrath and it also gives you a fighting chance against Combo. Get a lucky draw with Turn 1 Mom and turn 2 Gaddock and you will beat ANT.

Qasali Pridemage, Gaddock Teeg: Would play 4 of both if it wasn't for Tarmogoyf. Teeg is a bit better but Legendary so a 3/3 split feels right.

KotR: The big beater. Usually gets at least 6/6 and often even bigger. Usually tutors Wastelands but can also find Canopies if you need gas.

Kitchen Finks/Witness: Survival targets. More Kitchen Finks miss the maindeck very close but KotR is just better.

Iona/Retainers: Incredibly powerful Combo for a pure G/W deck and also very cheap. Usually one of the first things to be done as soon as you have enough Mana.

Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Survival of the Fittest: Not much to say.

2 Enlightened Tutor, 1 Jitte, 1 O-Ring: If I want to do fancy stuff I get Survival to make Iona, so every Tutor target is also a good card when drawn.
Tutor makes the deck much more consistent. It usually acts as Survival 5+6 but against Zoo or Dredge it can find Jitte and if your opponent Moats you or something similar you get rid of it with O Ring.

Sideboard:

Most of the cards can be tutored for so that explains the many 1 and 2 offs. Elspeth is to fight control decks and Grip against Counterbalances and Moats. Runed Halo is in there because Progenitus is so popular by now. The 4th Gaddock comes in against Combo and Control, Finks and Jitte against Tribal and Zoo. Also make sure to side out the Iona Combo if you don't get enough out of it in a certain matchup (like when they counter your Survivals) or if the opponent hates the graveyard too much. Also side out E. Tutors against decks with counterspells.

I can't speak for every matchp in detail but generally I side like this:

Matchups:

I have played a lot of games, but not tested matchups with real statistics yet so I make it short to not say something wrong.
Landstill, Aggro and Aggro Control feel solid, Dredge and Staxx too, Combo is not so good.

Re: GW Survival

I had a very similar GW survival deck a bit ago that did well enough vs a lot of things but I kept getting my Dreams Devastated , and dropped it. But here's some food for thought:

I used Sylvan Safekeeper over Mother of Runes, I like the mini-synergy with Knight and the lack of relevant summoning sickness, and the ability to activate multiple times to chain removal.

Iona wasn't out yet so I used Oriss, Samite Guardian + Genisis for a close to hard lock with Safekeeper.

I also had 1 Kor Haven my Knight could fetch which was really handy, unlike Maze of Ith it taps mana, and only the attacking creatures damage is prevented, so you could gang block with small creatures to kill a big attacker and not lose any small creatures.

Re: GW Survival

Hey Tao, I know you aren't "some random" guy but a very expierenced survival player but I still have some issues and maybe tweaks for your awesome looking gw decksketch.

1. One Kitchen Fink
I think that we can agree, that this one is an awesome card to have and a necessity in an aggro packed meta.
While KotR is a better thread, finks can handle zoo so much better and should get the nod over a 4th Knight.

2. Tutor Engine
In a deck without any (or very limited) carddraw possibilities this seems less viable since it still is carddisadvantage, even if it gets you a survival/ORing.
I think I would drop them altogether and put in 2 Sylvan Libraries, which are plain awesome in aggro decks. Also Libraries synergize a bit with finks.

3. One Oblivion Ring - silverbullet.
Well you are playing 4 Survivals and just 2 Tutors, why not playing a mangara of korondor main. I understand that mangara is a creature and can't get rid of stuff ASAP, but won't get carddisadvantage if you survival for it and you can defend it with a mother.

4. Just 2 Canopies.
You are playing a two colored deck and don't have big mana problems - but library manipulation is rare. Why not running a 3rd Canopy over a duel?

That's all I can think off as right now.
I would probably play the deck like this (I'll definitaley test this :D ):

Re: GW Survival

This list has one problem with it, it runs no disruption and has no real answer to Counterbalance main deck. I would highly recommend running Wickerborough Elder as a solution to problematic Enchantment/artifact along side Qasali Pridemage.

Re: GW Survival

I'm testing similar deck (WG Survival/Death and Taxes hybrid) and I run 4 Aether Vial. The card shows very good results. We have a bunch of good creatures with 1-2-3 costs, Survival decks are generaly manahungry (wich means manadenial can hurt), we want to be able to use Wastelands and Canopies earlier and we need more outs against countermagic.
I guess you should try Vial (also, it'll be easier to include 4th Wasteland).

Also, my deck runs no Iona+Retainers. I think we have just enough tools for any situation if our Survival starts working and the combo screwed my topdecks too much when I have no Sur.

Last edited by eq.firemind; 01-13-2010 at 04:53 AM.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

Re: GW Survival

Thx for the feedback. Here are my thoughts to your ideas.

Ather Vial: First of all Vial because the card sounds logical and good. But I don't like Aether Vial in this deck: While it gets the creatures around Countermagic, it does not get the Survival around Countermagic so you run out of creatures very fast if they can counter. If you don't have Survival your creatures are cheap enough to just be casted. And with Survival it is worse and takes more slots than the Iona Combo. Goblins, Merfolk and D&T work different and Vial is much better in these decks.

Iona/Retainers Combo: This Combo is WAY too good to not be played. It is cheap, doesn't take many slots and is not disrupted by Removal. The combination of it's strength and simplicity easily crushes the theory of "don't play too Combo-ish because if you have Survival you are in a good shape anyways". All other Survival Combos are either clumsy or easily disruptable or take way too many slots or need more cards than just Survival + creature to go online. The Combo will easily win you far more games that you would have lost otherwise than it loses you because you drew a Combo piece instead of a spell. It is not even close.
Sylvan Library: I like this idea a lot and have replaced E Tutors with it. The deck needs a 5th and 6th spell with impact beneath Survival, and Library might be better than E Tutor. However, I somehow also miss the flexibility of E. Tutors, getting your yard and combo hate right on turn 2 was always good. Really not sure between the two cards but I think Library is the right choice.

Finks Count: I first started with a 3/3 split between Finks and KotR, then removed one Fink to get a 3rd Pridemage and finally decided to go split 4/1. The logic behind that was to follow your own instead of trying to prepare for every single deck, be it Zoo or Dredge or Countertop. It would just take up so many slots, a Faerie Macabre here, Wickerbough Elder there, another Fink here, also Genesis and soon you have to cut a whole playset of something.

That said I might be wrong about Finks because they are not only good in the Zoo matchup, they are also good against both Tribal decks and somehow solid in ever other matchup.

No CB-Solution MD: The only thing WB Elder does what Pridemage does not is to destroy CB. Unlike a few month ago Countertop isn't the defining deck of the format anymore. Zoo, ANT and Merfolk are at least the same in popularity and furthermore there are always like 50 decks around in Legacy so Countertop won't be more than 15-20% of the field.
Also WB Elder is not likely going to destroy Counterbalance because it requires so much to happen. It requires you to have an active Survival while they have Countertop active, then you have to have 5 Mana (better 6 Mana so they can't Daze/Sword it) on the table and them having no Force of Will. And if all that really happened then they are not allowed to just go Brainstorm - Ponder - next Counterbalance. All this combined is so unlikely that it makes it much better to play a better card MD (like another Finks) and just rely on Pridemages for Disenchants and let Grips take care of CBs.
The Countertop matchup is not bad. You pressure them a lot and if they can't find their Combo right away they get too far behind on the board, especially if they couldn't take care of Mother of Runes.

Mangara: Danger of cool things alert ;)
It might be possible to abuse him in a D&T Survival but in this deck it is not good. Survivaling him up and then waiting a whole turn doesn't make the cut, if you can target the problem you already have Pridemages to tutor or 4 Swords to draw (or Witness to regain Swords). Your list would be better with the 4th Mother of Runes instead of him.
Sylvan Safekeeper: I think Mother of Runes is superior in every way. Mother can also block and give evasion but most importantly doesn't force you choose between 2 bad things (losing a land and sacrificing a creature).
Maze/Kor Haven: I think Kor Haven needs too much Mana to be worth. Usually you want to be the aggressive player or at least be in the race but if you spend one Knight activation and from then on tap 3 Mana each turn to fog one creature you pretty much quit the race.

Re: GW Survival

Originally Posted by Tao

Thx for the feedback. Here are my thoughts to your ideas.

Ather Vial: First of all Vial because the card sounds logical and good. But I don't like Aether Vial in this deck: While it gets the creatures around Countermagic, it does not get the Survival around Countermagic so you run out of creatures very fast if they can counter. If you don't have Survival your creatures are cheap enough to just be casted. And with Survival it is worse and takes more slots than the Iona Combo. Goblins, Merfolk and D&T work different and Vial is much better in these decks.

Iona/Retainers Combo: This Combo is WAY too good to not be played. It is cheap, doesn't take many slots and is not disrupted by Removal. The combination of it's strength and simplicity easily crushes the theory of "don't play too Combo-ish because if you have Survival you are in a good shape anyways". All other Survival Combos are either clumsy or easily disruptable or take way too many slots or need more cards than just Survival + creature to go online. The Combo will easily win you far more games that you would have lost otherwise than it loses you because you drew a Combo piece instead of a spell. It is not even close.
Sylvan Library: I like this idea a lot and have replaced E Tutors with it. The deck needs a 5th and 6th spell with impact beneath Survival, and Library might be better than E Tutor. However, I somehow also miss the flexibility of E. Tutors, getting your yard and combo hate right on turn 2 was always good. Really not sure between the two cards but I think Library is the right choice.

Finks Count: I first started with a 3/3 split between Finks and KotR, then removed one Fink to get a 3rd Pridemage and finally decided to go split 4/1. The logic behind that was to follow your own instead of trying to prepare for every single deck, be it Zoo or Dredge or Countertop. It would just take up so many slots, a Faerie Macabre here, Wickerbough Elder there, another Fink here, also Genesis and soon you have to cut a whole playset of something.

That said I might be wrong about Finks because they are not only good in the Zoo matchup, they are also good against both Tribal decks and somehow solid in ever other matchup.

No CB-Solution MD: The only thing WB Elder does what Pridemage does not is to destroy CB. Unlike a few month ago Countertop isn't the defining deck of the format anymore. Zoo, ANT and Merfolk are at least the same in popularity and furthermore there are always like 50 decks around in Legacy so Countertop won't be more than 15-20% of the field.
Also WB Elder is not likely going to destroy Counterbalance because it requires so much to happen. It requires you to have an active Survival while they have Countertop active, then you have to have 5 Mana (better 6 Mana so they can't Daze/Sword it) on the table and them having no Force of Will. And if all that really happened then they are not allowed to just go Brainstorm - Ponder - next Counterbalance. All this combined is so unlikely that it makes it much better to play a better card MD (like another Finks) and just rely on Pridemages for Disenchants and let Grips take care of CBs.
The Countertop matchup is not bad. You pressure them a lot and if they can't find their Combo right away they get too far behind on the board, especially if they couldn't take care of Mother of Runes.

Mangara: Danger of cool things alert ;)
It might be possible to abuse him in a D&T Survival but in this deck it is not good. Survivaling him up and then waiting a whole turn doesn't make the cut, if you can target the problem you already have Pridemages to tutor or 4 Swords to draw (or Witness to regain Swords). Your list would be better with the 4th Mother of Runes instead of him.
Sylvan Safekeeper: I think Mother of Runes is superior in every way. Mother can also block and give evasion but most importantly doesn't force you choose between 2 bad things (losing a land and sacrificing a creature).
Maze/Kor Haven: I think Kor Haven needs too much Mana to be worth. Usually you want to be the aggressive player or at least be in the race but if you spend one Knight activation and from then on tap 3 Mana each turn to fog one creature you pretty much quit the race.

Seems all reasonable.
Also I totally agree on the Vial issue here.
While it is good, this deck cannot support it as effectively as merfolk or goblins could do. Those tribal decks have all draw effects (Ringleader/ Adept & Standstill etc.) so that drawing it midgame isn't as bad as it would be in this deck. You just can't afford to draw a blank aether vial turn 7 in a deck packed with plains and forests.

@ Tao: I hope you'll find some time to test the matchups and update the o.p.
I so hope that this can be made viable.

Re: GW Survival

Originally Posted by Tao

Ather Vial: First of all Vial because the card sounds logical and good. But I don't like Aether Vial in this deck: While it gets the creatures around Countermagic, it does not get the Survival around Countermagic so you run out of creatures very fast if they can counter. If you don't have Survival your creatures are cheap enough to just be casted. And with Survival it is worse and takes more slots than the Iona Combo. Goblins, Merfolk and D&T work different and Vial is much better in these decks.

Sound fair, but my important argument was that alongside help against countermagic Vial helps your cool lands. You can activate your Wastelands and Canopies earlier and including 4th Wasteland is not a problem anymore.

I've played a lot of WG decks from straigh WG midrange to WG DnT to Sur/DnT mix. In the end the package of 4 Vial + 4 Hierarch was in every deck 'cause I wanted to maximise a number of explosive starts (just like each and every Goblin deck plays 4 Vial + 4 Lackey). The comparison with Goblins is not accidental 'cause after my opponent figures out what cards am I playing, he tried to get rid of turn 1 Hierarch/Vial just like everyone will try to stop turn 1 Lackey/Vial. But anyway, you are centanly not wrong about Vial too. Looks like an individual gamestyle question...

Originally Posted by Tao

Mangara: Danger of cool things alert ;)
It might be possible to abuse him in a D&T Survival but in this deck it is not good. Survivaling him up and then waiting a whole turn doesn't make the cut, if you can target the problem you already have Pridemages to tutor or 4 Swords to draw (or Witness to regain Swords). Your list would be better with the 4th Mother of Runes instead of him.

If you have Vial, you can weaken the manabase a little to fit in 1-2 Karakas (tutorable by KotR) and just have DnT's main trick in your deck. Also, Karakas is funny against Iona and Marit Lage and saves your Teeg from StP if you don't have Mother.

But that's just my preferences and the influence of my pet deck. I guess if you want agressive WG survival, your direction is right and Iona+Retainers is just the right bomb for the deck.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

Re: GW Survival

I am looking forward to reading how does the Kotr+Wasteland tech work during playtesting. While it looks very tempting, Survival builds are well known for being mana hungry and not very keen on sacrificing their own lands.

Re: GW Survival

1)I think that you can drop Kitchen Finks to put in a nice "combo" that save u from Burn, zoo and that is a great close against Merfolk: Mirror Entity + Ravenous Baloth....with Mirror all your creatures gain changeling and with baloth in play you can gain a lot of life...against merfolk is a bomb if your opponent has a Lord of Atlantis on the battlefield...he pump you creatures and give them islandwalk...if you have 3/4 creatures and 4 mana open is gg.

Re: GW Survival

Originally Posted by ricste88

1)I think that you can drop Kitchen Finks to put in a nice "combo" that save u from Burn, zoo and that is a great close against Merfolk: Mirror Entity + Ravenous Baloth....with Mirror all your creatures gain changeling and with baloth in play you can gain a lot of life...against merfolk is a bomb if your opponent has a Lord of Atlantis on the battlefield...he pump you creatures and give them islandwalk...if you have 3/4 creatures and 4 mana open is gg.

2)Why don't you run 1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary?

1) Fitchen Finks is way more viable on itself than Mirror Entity and the baloth.
Which has a cute synergy but seems just win-more.
Also sacrificing your whole creature base is never a good strategy if you plan on winning with creatures...
Burn won't be an issue with 2 finks and 2 jitte and a fast clock.
And the merfolk matchup is somewhere at 70-30.
Dropping finks just makes no sense.

2) Rofellos without anger is bad. Like really bad.
Does nothing on it's own and does not support the aggressive element of the deck. Also the deck's got not that a high curve, so the 4 hierarch should be enough for ramping.
(Also of course helping the exalted theme)

I

am looking forward to reading how does the Kotr+Wasteland tech work during playtesting. While it looks very tempting, Survival builds are well known for being mana hungry and not very keen on sacrificing their own lands.

I don't think you'll use KotR-Waste that often, just when the opponent is low on mana, or just has one source of a color you don't want him to have.
KotR is in here to be the big beater. That he synergizes with Wasteland is a bonus.
Also deck's got no mana issues like earlier takes on survival, just because the curve is low and you play the hierarchs.
In my testings there were'nt any issues concerning the mana base.

Re: GW Survival

2 questions.

1) with 7 fetches, 4 kotr, and survival for shuffle effects, have you considered SDT as a source of library manipulation? Seems like it would be good here as a way to find survival and other effects over e. tutor.

2) slots are tight, but does that really justify not running a single genesis since volrath's stronghold is also absent? Is it worth it to rework the manabase to include a stronghold and a black dual (both findable with kotrs) or the creature base to slip in a single genesis? It seems like the slight decrease in consistency would be more than made up for by the massively increased long game this would give you.

Bonus thing I just thought of - have you looked at Reveillark for this deck? At a glance it gets back teeg, pridemage, kotr, witness, hierarch, mother, and retainers. I don't know how good it would be with its 5cc, but it seems like it at least has potential.

Re: GW Survival

Originally Posted by morgan_coke

2) slots are tight, but does that really justify not running a single genesis since volrath's stronghold is also absent? Is it worth it to rework the manabase to include a stronghold and a black dual (both findable with kotrs) or the creature base to slip in a single genesis? It seems like the slight decrease in consistency would be more than made up for by the massively increased long game this would give you.

Bonus thing I just thought of - have you looked at Reveillark for this deck? At a glance it gets back teeg, pridemage, kotr, witness, hierarch, mother, and retainers. I don't know how good it would be with its 5cc, but it seems like it at least has potential.

I can just guess but here are my toughts on your questions:

The slots are indeed very tight. As I tried to put in more kitchen finks I couldn't decide what to cut. Everything seemed right.
Genesis is unfortunately not agressive enough to get a md spot - also Genesis is mainly used to fight control decks. Gaddock Teeg does this at least as good - which leads me to believe that genesis is not needed md - but could be a viable sb choice when control starts to rise again.

Reveillark looks like a good gimmick but does this deck really need it?
I would say no. Especially when you think that it costs 2 more than witness and does less.

Also- Volraths Stronghold is nice, but it isn't worth the splash since you can always run genesis without mutilating the manabase.

Re: GW Survival

Originally Posted by EaD

The slots are indeed very tight. As I tried to put in more kitchen finks I couldn't decide what to cut. Everything seemed right.
Genesis is unfortunately not agressive enough to get a md spot - also Genesis is mainly used to fight control decks. Gaddock Teeg does this at least as good - which leads me to believe that genesis is not needed md - but could be a viable sb choice when control starts to rise again.

How about no... Most controldecks( Landstill/MUC/ITF/Countertop) can easiliy play around Gaddock Teeg or just destroy it on the spot. Recurring threads with Genesis are a lot harder to beat...